For the first time, George Zimmerman is coming face to face with the people who could decide his fate. The complicated task of selecting a jury is underway in the trial for the neighborhood watch volunteer facing murder charges in the death of Trayvon Martin.

For a time, it had the makings of a mountain mystery. Three deaths - first an elderly couple then, weeks later, an 11-year-old boy - in the same hotel room with the same immediate response from authorities: cause of death undetermined.

When the third death - that of a South Carolina youth visiting Boone with his mother - made news over the weekend in a Charlotte Observer story ("Mystery surrounds Boone motel deaths,") it brought on reader comments punctuated with words such as "terrifying," "bizarre," "really weird," "incredibly creepy."
READ MORE: 'Mystery' of 3 deaths in same hotel room traced: Carbon monoxide

The White House said Monday it welcomes a debate over the electronic surveillance programs exposed by a National Security Agency contractor, even as federal agents began building a case against the self-proclaimed leaker.

Edward Snowden told the British newspaper the Guardian that he left behind his family and a six-figure job in Hawaii to reveal the extent of the NSA's collection of telephone and Internet data, which he called "an existential threat to democracy." The 29-year-old worked for computer consultant Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor for the U.S. electronic intelligence agency.

Snowden said he expects to be prosecuted for the leak, and a federal law enforcement official said Monday that FBI agents have begun an investigation by searching the 29-year-old's home and computers and seeking interviews with his girlfriend, relatives, friends and co-workers.

Ex-CIA employee Edward Snowden, the man who revealed himself as the individual who leaked classified information about U.S. government surveillance programs, is hiding out in Hong Kong and hoping to seek asylum in Iceland.

New York Republican Congressman Peter King, Chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterintelligence and Terrorism says Snowden "is dangerous to the country" and "should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law" for the leak.

The White House is pushing back this morning against harsh criticism of the secret surveillance effort recently reported by British newspaper, the Guardian, and The Washington Post. The administration is insisting there's been oversight of the program, and that it's prevented terror attacks.

CNN Chief Political Correspondent and host of “State of the Union” Candy Crowley weighs in on the scope of the fallout. This administration is “getting hit from the left and then from the right, although not conservatives, but more the independents,” she says, “the libertarians who think this is too much of an intrusion on civil liberties.”

Equipped with search cameras, microphones and motion detectors, and bathed in harsh LED lights that illuminated the darkness, rescue workers combed through piles of bricks and rubble early Thursday, listening for the faint tap-tap-tapping of life buried in the ruins of a collapsed building.

A day earlier, the side of a building under demolition had given way and toppled onto a Salvation Army thrift store next door.

Throughout the day Wednesday, dispirited emergency responders had carried out six people in body bags. But they received a momentary jolt of joy when, shortly before midnight, they pulled out 61-year-old Myra Plekam alive.